Critical Care
by Mars on Fire
Summary: She spends her days caring for patients, but never one like this. A disenchanted nurse is charged with caring for Johnny Cade in his last hours. One shot.


**Disclaimer:** S.E. Hinton owns the Outsiders.

******A/N:** Another piece I posted under another account awhile back. I broke it into two parts then, but I think it works better as a one shot, even though it's quite long. Comments are appreciated.

**Summary:** She spends her days caring for patients, but never one like this. A disenchanted nurse is charged with caring for Johnny Cade in his last hours. One shot.

* * *

**Critical Care**

He didn't look sixteen.

That was my first impression of Johnny Cade, aged sixteen. His chart said that was his age, but I couldn't believe it. He was thin, with large eyes and a closed look about him, and I wouldn't have taken him for any older than fourteen.

According to his chart, he had partial and full thickness burns over sixty-five percent of his body, a spinal fracture at T12 and L1 and had suffered through a debridement so horrible the other nurses told me you could hear his screaming all the way down the ward.

He hadn't said a word since I'd come on shift that morning and found he was face down on the suspended burn bed. The worst of his wounds were wrapped in gauze. Nancy, my senior RN, told me I'd have a hard time changing the bandages. Burns are never pleasant, but they can turn even the hardest stomachs.

I was selfishly glad I hadn't worked last night when he came in. I found myself selfishly glad about a lot of things the past few months, like when I wouldn't get a assigned a particularly difficult patient, or a change in my schedule meant less hours for the week … and worst, when ornery and demanding patients slipped further into their illnesses, so their demands were fewer. I wouldn't admit to the relief when some would die.

Nancy told me he wasn't much of a talker, and when I arrived in his room that morning, he proved her right. He hadn't said a single word since I'd met him.

His gaze followed me, though. He'd look away when he'd catch me looking back at him, but he watched me as I came into the room, took blood pressure as best I could over the gauze on his less severely burned arm, and changed his IV bottle out. He'd gone through three bottles overnight, and according to his charts, his levels were still not right. Burns destroy the chemistry of your body. In the end, all we are is chemicals and electrical impulses, and his were failing him.

Doctor Bryant told us all at morning rounds Johnny Cade wouldn't survive.

It was hard to believe that with those brown eyes boring into you.

"Do you need anything Johnny?" I asked him for the third time, looking into the mirror Nancy had set up so he could see everyone.

He shook his head slowly, gasping a little.

"More pain medication?" I asked.

Those liquid brown eyes looked at my own and he nodded slightly. I left the room and returned with the vial of morphine, injecting it into the line. I noticed the skin around the IV site was already an angry red. Infection sets in fast in burn victims.

He saw me staring at the arm, then looked up at me again. I tried to keep my face impassive – a nurse is no good to you if she's a bumbling mess of emotions. I had learned years ago not to get attached, not to care too much. Now I was afraid I didn't care enough.

I couldn't read his look, so I smiled tightly, then discarded the needle.

"Do you think you'd like something to drink?" I asked, trying to keep my voice level. "Some water with ice chips maybe?"

He, of course, said nothing. A second later he nodded.

I left the room, went to the kitchenette and filled a cup with ice and water, quickly returning it to Johnny's room. I placed it so he could reach the straw with his lips.

"I'll be back in about fifteen minutes," I said.

I spent time at the nurse's station updating his chart. The small black and white television in the lounge was on, and I saw a reporter telling the story of these boys and their heroic actions from right out in front of the hospital. The morning paper had carried the story as well – Juvenile Delinquents Turn Heroes. Whoever thought that sweet kid was a JD was crazy.

"Hey."

I turned around and saw an honest-to-God JD standing in front of me, looking impatient and maybe a tad nervous.

"Can I help you?"

"Cade kid around here?" he asked.

"You can't see him," I said. "He's in critical condition."

"Winston, then?" the guy said, toying with a cigarette.

"He's down on the next floor," I said. I had heard the rumours he was terrorizing the nurses on the Medicine floor below. He was probably fast friends with this one, but how he knew Johnny was a mystery to me.

"That his room?" the guy said, gesturing towards Johnny's room.

"Yes, but you can't go in," I told him again, my voice firm.

"Don't get your panties in a twist lady," he said with a sardonic grin.

He turned on his heel and walked back toward the elevators, passing Johnny's room.

"Hey kid," he said, leaning into the room, his hands bracing him against the frame. "Nice job with that Soc."

He continued walking, turning around to give me another smile. It made me uncomfortable, and I hadn't the faintest idea why.

XXXX

Johnny had more visitors later that day.

"I'm sorry, but you can't see him," I said again. "He's in critical condition."

I recognized the blond boy from the photos in the newspaper. He was one of the boys that had rescued the kids with Johnny.

"Come on now, Johnny ain't got family more than us," the other was saying, a tall boy with a stocky build and rusty sideburns which were a little out of fashion. "I know he'd want to see us."

"It doesn't matter," I said. "Burn patients can't be exposed to possible contaminants or bacteria. He's in a vulnerable state."

"We'll wear gowns and masks. Come on!"

"I'm sorry, I wish I could – "

"Mary Louise."

I looked over to see Dr. Bryant coming out of a patient's room. "Let them see him. It can't hurt."

I could've slapped the man for his insensitivity, and for a split second I thought the blond one was going to pass out on the floor from shock. His friend clapped him on the shoulder, bolstering him up, and I gestured towards Johnny's door and followed them inside.

I raised the blinds a little so they could see. There was no need to cloak the burns in darkness now that they knew.

"Hey Johnny," the older boy said.

"Hi y'all."

I couldn't help but smile. "So he does talk after all."

The older boy looked over and grinned at me, and I could've sworn Johnny hid a smile too.

"How're you doing, kid? They treatin' you okay?"

The older boy said it while looking right at me, as if challenging me to treat him any less than okay. I smiled at Johnny again, then left the room, giving them their privacy.

XXXX

Johnny's mother arrived a few minutes later.

I had wondered where she was. No mother I'd ever seen had let her child be hospitalized for almost a day without showing up. She was small and dark like her son, but her eyes were nothing compared to his.

I went back into Johnny's room after she asked after him. The older boy had left.

"Johnny," I said. "Your mother's here."

"No. I don't wanna see her," he said, with more firmness and direction than I thought possible in his singed voice.

"But she's your mother."

"I said I don't want to see her." His voice was thin and reedy as he struggled for air. "She's probably come to yell at me about all the trouble I've caused and tell me how glad she and my old man'll be when I die. Well, I don't need 'em. Tell her to leave me alone for once. Just leave me alone."

I rushed over as he tried to get up, his eyes widening, then glassing over as he passed out.

"I was afraid this might happen." I muttered. I took his pulse. It was slow and thready.

The older boy returned.

"You can't see him now," I said, waving them both toward the hall.

The older boy's grey eyes were wide with alarm. He was holding a book.

"Make sure he can see it when he wakes up," he said, handing it to me. I closed the door as they left, then looked down at the book. Gone With The Wind.

I went back to Johnny's beside, took his pulse again, then his blood pressure and was satisfied he'd passed out due to the exertion.

His mother made a scene when she left, and I was embarrassed for Johnny.

I went back into his room after. He awoke groggy and I urged him to get some rest. He fell asleep in minutes, his breathing even, the monitors beeping a slow, comforting rhythm

I sighed, sitting down in the chair next to his bed. What kind of mother inspires a child to spurn her on his death bed? What kind of a child reads Gone With The Wind and saves the lives of a group of children, lying in a hospital bed for his trouble, covered in dead and dying skin?

I don't know how long I sat there, but the sky had darkened when I left to finish my rounds.

XXXX

There was twenty minutes left on my shift, the ward was quiet, and I decided to spend them in Johnny's room.

"Mary Louise?"

I looked up to the doorway to see another nurse, Lois, there.

"Karen Jameson called in sick. Do you think you can pull a double?" she asked.

Ordinarily I'd say no. Ordinarily I'd beat it out of the hospital the minute I clocked out. Ordinarily I wasn't taking care of a dying sixteen-year-old.

"Sure," I said, surprising the hell out of her. She looked at me for a moment.

"I just came on. The ward is quiet right now, only nine beds," she said. "I'll take the other eight if you want to stay with him."

I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat. "Okay."

I sat down next to his bed again, hearing his regular breathing and the beeping of the monitors. I noticed the book and picked it up.

I hadn't read Gone With The Wind since I was in high school. Back then I'd been passionately entranced with Scarlett O'Hara and her tricks. Scanning a few pages, I now remembered her as selfish, blind and heroic.

"Is she gone?"

I looked over at the mirror, shocked he's spoken.

I smiled a little and nodded. "Awhile ago. She made quite a scene."

He smiled a little, then looked at the book. "You read it?"

"In high school," I said. "What part are you at?"

"The siege of Atlanta," he said quietly.

I was going to ask if he wanted me to read it to him when he spoke again.

"I ain't gonna get through the rest … am I?"

I looked down at the pages. The doctors had told him how bad the burns were and how broken his back was, how he'd never walk again, but they'd neglected to mention that none of that mattered. They had warned us not to tell him.

"Please."

I looked at his brown eyes again, almost pleading with me.

"No," I said. "You won't be able to get through the rest."

He was stoic.

"Why?"

I took a deep breath. "Infection. When you're burned, water is leeched out of your body. The chemicals in your blood are out of balance. It makes you susceptible to bacteria and viruses that you wouldn't normally be. So much of your skin was ... was burned, the inner layers were exposed. You have a systemic infection – your whole body."

He was quiet, and I was afraid I'd scared him into silence.

"Will it hurt?"

"Not any worse than it's felt," I said quietly.

He closed his eyes for a second, taking even breaths. Trying not to cry.

"Mary Louise?"

I looked over to see Lois in the doorway again.

"There's some people here to see him."

"Tell them no," I said.

"I think he should," she told me.

I smiled at him, then got up and followed Lois to the hall.

"This is Mr. and Mrs. Stanton," Maureen said. "Johnny saved their daughter."

"We just want to thank him," Mrs. Staton said, her eyes wet. "Please."

I looked back towards the doorway, remembering his voice at hearing his mother was there, and the expression on his face as he thought of her. He probably had it bad at home. A few kind words couldn't hurt him.

"Five minutes," I said. "If he wants it."

I went in to ask him and he nodded shyly.

"I'll be on my dinner break," I said to him. "When I come back, I'll tell you about the rest of the book."

He managed a small smile, and I managed to get out of the room before crying.

XXXX

I had dinner in the cafeteria and brought Johnny a piece of cheesecake. He didn't have the appetite for more than a few bites. I sensed he was embarrassed I had to feed him.

"How did your visit go?" I asked, hanging a new bottle of intravenous fluid.

"Alright." A man of few words.

"I read about you in the paper," I said. I had, too. I hadn't glanced at anything but the headlines and scanned the article that morning, but over dinner I'd sat and read it.

It was the first time I'd learned this quiet child had killed someone.

I thought I would be angry or disgusted with him. But looking at those big eyes, the only thing I could think was to wonder how on earth he'd managed to out-power the star football player at Will Rogers High and why that star football player had been harassing those boys in the first place. It all seemed such a waste now.

Johnny said nothing about stabbing Robert Sheldon, and I didn't ask.

Instead I told him about Scarlett returning to Tara, working in the fields, marrying Frank for his money then widowed again, then marrying Rhett and suffering at her own hand due to her love for Ashley.

"In the end, she decides that "Tomorrow is another day!," I told him. "She refused to give up, even when the going got hard. Maybe that's why I liked her so much when I was in school."

"What do you think happens when you die?" he asked suddenly.

He startled me. "I … well, I don't know. The Bible says we go home to God. I guess I'd like to believe that's true."

"What about me?" he asked.

"Did you mean to kill him?" I asked softly.

"I just wanted him to ... stop," Johnny said. "Just wanted him to stop."

His laboured breathing seemed to fill the room.

"I'm sorry for it, too," he said. "I guess it ain't too late to be sorry."

"No," I said gently. "I don't think anything is too late."

I thought about how tired I was, how much this job had hurt me, how I was unsure I wanted to keep doing it, and how cross I'd been with patients over the past six months. I thought about how I wasn't good at my job anymore.

"What are you thinkin' about?"

I looked at him through the mirror. He was staring at me, frowning a little.

"Nothing," I said.

"Didn't look like nothing."

I smiled a little, pleased he was talking more. I shouldn't have been surprised he noticed my expression or felt my suddenly black mood. He was a perceptive kid.

"Sometimes … sometimes I don't think I'm cut out for this."

"Nursing folks?"

I nodded.

"Seem alright to me."

I smiled. "You wouldn't say that if you'd seen me with other patients. The last few months … well, I've been cross with people too sick to realize they're being difficult. I've been careless with them. How would you like a nurse that doesn't pay you much attention, even when you need it most?"

He was quiet for a moment, and I thought of his mother.

"You make me feel guilty for it," I said truthfully.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes wide.

"Rushing in a burning building to save those kids … that takes a lot of gumption," I said. "I don't even have enough to sit with the patients who need me most. I chose this. I chose to be a nurse, and I haven't been doing it right for a long time."

He was quiet again, his eyes pensive.

"Tomorrow's another day … right?" he asked.

I looked down at the book cover, then him.

"Yes," I said. "Tomorrow is another day."

For me it was. For him, it may not come.

Tomorrow I would be better. Tomorrow I would do better. I looked at this sixteen-year-old boy and wondered how it was he had inspired me to do it. I had seen so many patients die, so many deathly ill, so many hurting and in pain. In the beginning I cared so much I broke down every day going home. I stopped getting attached for fear of losing my mind. But I'd made a mistake somewhere - somewhere along the way, I had become so detached I had stopped caring at all.

Staring at Johnny Cade, I realized there had to be a middle road somewhere, and I think he was pointing me to it.

"Do you need anything?" I asked him. "I'm off duty at eleven."

"Paper," he said breathlessly. His breathing was becoming more difficult as the hours wore on.

"Paper?"

"I wanna write down some things," he said.

My heart broke at the thought he was writing a will. I nodded, went to the nurse's station and brought him back some paper and a pencil.

"I need to do rounds," I said. "I'll be back in a little while."

XXXX

I came back just after ten and he was dozing, but he woke up when I placed my hand on his arm.

"Hurts," he said.

"I'm sorry." I removed my hand as quickly as I could.

"No … everywhere."

I looked at his chart. He'd had morphine an hour earlier. His breathing was heavy and thick.

"I'll see what I can do," I told him.

I asked Lois, a senior RN, and she got the doctor on call to okay another ten micrograms of morphine. Johnny relaxed when I pushed the bolus.

"Better?" I asked.

He nodded.

"The book," he said. "Make sure Ponyboy gets the book."

"Ponyboy?" I asked. The boy from the newspaper. "Your friend that was here?"

"Yeah. The blond one," he said, almost smiling, as if he knew some great secret. "Make sure he gets it, alright?"

"You can give it to him yourself tomorrow," I told him. "I'll make sure he's allowed in to see you."

He looked up at me, his eyes plainly saying he knew he wouldn't be around to give it.

"Please make sure he gets it," he said. "Please."

He was getting agitated.

"Alright," I said, placing my hand on the back of his head, my fingers sinking into his dark hair, which had been washed during the debridement. It was soft. "Don't worry, I'll give it to him."

He looked at me thankfully, and I smoothed his hair down. I took the book and placed it on the table near the bed.

An orderly came in a few minutes later, and we turned Johnny over on the burn bed. Doctor Bryant had told us to go through every procedure, despite knowing the outcome. It was a slow process and he was in a lot of pain, but he barely uttered a sound. I got him comfortable on his back, then felt a sickening dread as I looked at him.

"Would you like me to stay?" I asked him, wanting him to say yes more for me than himself.

"Heck no," he said. "You been workin' all day."

"It's no trouble," I said.

"I'm alright," he told me.

I nodded at him, wished him good night, then left his room.

I wish I had stayed.

XXXX

When I arrived at seven in the morning for my shift, I found his room empty.

"Dammit," I swore, looking at the empty burn bed, the empty table. I felt the tears prick my eyes. I should have stayed. I should have stayed.

I wondered if he had been alone when the end came, or if he'd managed to press the call button for a nurse. I cursed myself for leaving him. A boy like that should have someone at the end. Everyone should have someone at the end.

The book.

"Nancy!" I called out to the senior RN. "Nancy, where's the book that was in Johnny Cade's room?"

"Damn shame, isn't it?" Nancy said. "He was a sweet kid. It's all over the news, him dying and his friend dying."

"What?" I asked, my blood turning cold. I had promised to get the book to his friend. He couldn't be dead.

"Dallas Winston. He was downstairs – Lord, you should've heard the stories the nurses in Medicine were telling about him! He held a knife to a doctor's throat to get out of here last night. He came back with the blond boy late last night looking like they'd been run over by a train. They were with him when he died."

I breathed a sigh of relief that Johnny hadn't been alone at least.

"The police shot that Winston kid after he robbed a store. What a sweet kid like Johnny Cade was doing with a hood like that I'll never know," Nancy sighed.

Dallas Winston. He was the third boy in the news story.

"Nancy," I said, swallowing a lump. "The book. It was on the table in Johnny's room. Did Ponyboy take it? The blond boy?"

"No, not that I remember," she said. "He was pretty out of it when he left."

"Do you know where it is? The book. Gone With The Wind?" I pressed.

"Probably with his personal effects. It might've gone down on the gurney with him to the morgue," Nancy said matter-of-factly.

She called out to me as I ran towards the elevators, but I didn't look back.

XXXX

I did not want to see him.

I wanted to remember his gaze following me around the room, brown eyes looking shyly at me, not glassy dead eyes staring straight ahead. I wanted to remember the even sound of his breathing, not a deathly silence. I did not want to see him.

I hesitated outside the morgue doors, too afraid to go in. But I had to find the book, and so I pushed them open and walked in.

"Can I help you?"

A young doctor had lifted his head from the paperwork he was doing at a desk in the corner. I thanked my lucky stars there was no autopsy going on. You see a lot of things as a nurse, but that is not one of them. I never wanted it to be one of them.

"Johnny Cade. He … he passed during the night," I said. "From the Critical Care floor. Do you have his personal effects?"

"Cade … Cade," the man said, looking at some papers. "Ah, here it is. Damn young kid. I hate that. The last few weeks I've seen more young kids in here than I ought to. He was brought down last night, that's the gurney over there, looks like a personal effects bag underneath."

"Thank you."

I took the bag into the hall and set it on a gurney to empty it. A cut up pair of jeans and a cut up jacket and shirt – the clothes they'd removed in the ambulance. A pair of beat up shoes – no socks – and yes! The book.

I clasped it to me, somehow feeling I had to do this or I'd die myself. I saw the slip of paper sticking out, and I'll admit to wanting to read it. But it wasn't for me, I knew that.

I used the stairs to get back to the main floor, cutting through the emergency room, televisions tuned to the news of the death of a "notorious hood." I stopped to see if I could find a chart on the Ponyboy Curtis since he'd been brought in with Johnny from the fire. Hopefully there would be an address.

"Which one are you looking for?" a nurse asked. "Last few days' admissions are boxed up for clerical."

"Ponyboy Curtis," I said.

She bustled towards the desk and picked up a chart.

"Here," she said. "He was moved up to Medicine an hour ago."

"What?" I asked.

"He was brought in late last night after that shooting," she said.

"Oh God," I said. "He wasn't shot, was he?"

"No, he's just real sick," she said. "Probably bacterial. He's up on four, delirious and on some heavy duty antibiotics and under sedation."

I took the elevator to Medicine.

XXXX

The nurse on duty wanted me to give the book to her.

"He's out cold, but I'll make sure he gets it," she said in a bored voice. I wondered if that's what I sounded like when I did my job, and realized with chagrin that it probably was.

"I don't mean to be rude, but I need to give it to him myself," I said. "It's important."

"Everything's important these days," she muttered. "The kid isn't awake. He's under sedation and they aren't bringing him out of it for a few days. He's delirious right now from the fever so he won't even be able to read it. I'll put it with his personal effects."

"I'm sorry, but I have to make sure he gets it," I said.

She looked stonily at me. "There. Those are his brothers."

She gestured down the hall to a tall man pacing the floor, another slumped in a chair, bouncing his leg fitfully.

"Excuse me," I asked. "Are you Ponyboy's family?"

"Yeah," the tall one said. "How's he doing? The docs won't tell us a thing but that he might have the flu or something."

"I'm sorry. All I know is he likely has a bacterial infection since he's on antibiotics," I said. "I work upstairs."

He looked at me, his blue eyes not caring about anything but news on his brother.

"I need you to give this to Ponyboy when he wakes up," I said, holding out the book.

His brother looked at it and frowned.

"He'll appreciate the book," he said awkwardly. "He likes to read."

"No … Johnny wanted him to have it," I said. "I was his nurse."

His face was expressionless, but his eyes were intense. The other boy sat up straighter on the couch.

"Johnny left him a note and the book," I explained. "He very badly wanted to make sure I got it to Ponyboy."

His brother took the book, flipping through the pages until he came to the note, but not removing it and not reading it.

"I'll make sure he gets it," he said stiffly.

"Thank you."

I turned towards the elevators, then turned back.

"I'm sorry for your loss," I said. "Both of them."

He nodded, glancing toward the television, still focused on a story of murder, heroes and hoods, a mug shot of an angry looking young man on the screen.

"Yeah," he said, not able to take his eyes off the television. "Thank you."

I got in the elevator and couldn't hold the tears back.

I never knew what was in that letter. But I knew from the short time I'd spent with Johnny Cade that whatever it was would change Ponyboy for the good. There was no way a person like Johnny Cade couldn't change you. He would change people without even being here, of that I was certain. He had changed me, after all.

I dried my eyes before I reached my floor, then returned to my job, this time with a smile.

I couldn't shut out the patients any more. No matter if it brought me tears and loss, I couldn't treat them and ignore them anymore. Keeping them at arms length helped only me, and Johnny had taught me better than that.

* * *

**A/N:** I am hoping to post a multi-chapter story and some one-shots soon. Thanks to everyone for their comments and reviews so far.


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